UC Riverside

A distinctive and recurring topic in Cervantes, especially in the plots of many of the interpolated stories of Don Quixote and the Exemplary Novels, is the matter of marriage. The importance of marriage in these stories is buttressed by the close attention paid to the decrees passed by the Council of Trent in 1563 regarding this newly-proclaimed sacrament of the Roman Church. A close analysis of these stories reveals that although Cervantes often alludes to Tridentine norms and regulations, they tend to be overlooked when social or economic problems complicate the path to the altar. Cervantes provides his readers with open-ended stories that do not portray marriage as having a conciliatory and integrative function. Often there is no final resolution. Such inconclusive endings nevertheless provide the reader an opportunity to appreciate the many conflicts that typified the society of that day.

In theory, Cervantes establishes the importance of marriage and its significance as an indissoluble union. However, in the actual implementation of these unions, he demonstrates their deficiencies as a means to achieve happy and satisfactory endings. He offers the reader contradictory views of marriage, thus implicitly challenging Tridentine orthodoxy.